Family still looking for closure in 2 murders

Tuesday

Tricia Pratt does not know any more about the murder of her 18-year-old son, Trenton Stopplemore, than she did June 22, 2006.

Tricia Pratt does not know any more about the murder of her 18-year-old son, Trenton Stopplemore, than she did June 22, 2006.

It was one year ago that her son was pronounced dead at the scene after a 911 call reporting a man had been stabbed. Stopplemore was able to ring the doorbell of a residence in the 700 block of East Gridley Road.

His burned car was found a mile away.

How he ended up near the Butte County Housing Authority that evening, his mother can only speculate.

It is true that Trenton had been involved in drugs in the past, but he was just turning his life around.

He went to Fresh Start House in Yuba City to receive help to start his life over.

“Fresh Start House is designed to help young people learn to manage their bills, live on a budget and how to live self-sufficient,” said his grandmother Marilyn Stopplemore.

According to his mother, Stopplemore was clean three months at the time of his death, and toxicology reports verified there were no drugs in his system the night of his murder.

He lived in Yuba City, had a job at a Yuba City Body Shop and was planning to ask his girlfriend at Christmas to marry him.

He had a drug test for his job and had to stay clean to work there.

The family announced a $10,000 reward in September 2006 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people who murdered him.

Something that haunts Pratt is the fact that her son was not the first family member murdered with no one arrested.

Pratt's sister-in-law Shirley Pratt, 41 at the time, was found murdered in October 2001 on Vance Avenue after she left an Oroville casino. She had just won $19,000. She died of a single gunshot wound to the upper body, leaving two children without a mother.

Stopplemore attended Gridley schools, and several of his former teachers attended his funeral, which was attended by more than 300 people, according to his grandmother.

“My son was a big-hearted kid, and not everybody realized it. He got in over his head, but he had turned his life around,” Pratt said.

A year has passed, and the reward posters appear in Gridley, Live Oak, Oroville and Biggs, proving that the family cannot and will not give up.

A heartbroken mother and grandparents are looking for answers, and looking for justice for Stopplemore's murder.